Brussel Sprouts Ruled my Week.

Exhibit A.

Roasted with Lime and Garlic.

Carrying home a locally grown, giant stalk of brussel sprouts from Uncle Paul's produce market last weekend was pretty damn joyous. In retrospect, I wish I had written a DW-style song about it. I had two strangers remark at the big, green stalk leaning on my shoulder on my walk home! They seemed impressed.

For $2.49, I had the centerpiece of my next few meals and a whole lot of roasted brussels in my future. Growing up, my family never ate brussel sprouts. I doubt I really knew what they looked like until I was in college. My family did have an appreciation for a variety of green vegetables, so I assume that my mom had been cursed with over boiled brussels when she was younger and banished them from her life.

My go-to way to cook brussel sprouts is to roast them with freshly squeezed citrus juice. I saw it on a cooking show a few years ago, tried it at home, and the method stuck.

The first way I rolled with my new sprouts was to roast them with lime juice, garlic, coarse sea salt, black pepper and a little bit of extra virgin olive oil.

I subsequently roasted more with lemon juice, crumbled Papa G's savory tofu, more garlic and cremini mushrooms.

Next up is a hodge podge meal that I like to think was more creative than desperate, but it goes both ways. I was obviously going to cook with brussel sprouts, but I wanted to do something different, and didn't have a lot to work with. And I was fiercely craving Pad Thai Kitchen, but wanted to continue on my home cooked meals streak.

Exhibit B.

Pad Thai Woon Sen with Brussel Sprouts and Seitan.

I loosely based the sauce on the recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance, sliced the brussels, used homemade seitan from The Urban Vegan cookbook and threw some crumbled peanuts on top. I was worried the brussels would overpower the dish's tangy flavor, but they didn't - and it hit the spot.

Anatomy of a Grocery Trip: Fubonn Supermarket & Brooklyn Pad Thai

It's been quite a while!  Somehow I've gone since September without an addition to the 

Get Sconed! Anatomy of a Grocery Trip series.  Blame the economy.  And living close to a New Seasons market.  

Yesterday I had tofu on the brain and took the bus to Fubonn Supermarket, just south of Division on 82nd Ave.

The goods:

I picked up fresh ginger, locally made fried tofu, fresh rice noodles, Mori Nu silken tofu, rice vinegar, agar agar and tamarind concentrate, which I haven't seen at Fubonn before and found on display for $1.69 or so!  I have some vegetables at home, so these were all fun, special purchases.  Once I grabbed the tofu and tamarind, I found myself walking to the fresh noodle section, and Pad Thai fell on the menu for dinner....

Brooklyn Pad Thai with thin rice noodles  

The recipe is from Vegan with a Vengeance.  This was my first time using tamarind concentrate ever - it's one of those products that I meant to buy and never had - and the taste was so close to Pad Thai Woon Sen at Pad Thai Kitchen!  I added broccoli and green bell pepper, and left out the red onions.  I used Sambal Olek as my chili component and the final product was fantastic.  Not to mention cooked in less than 15 minutes..

Another reason to love/hate Portland, OR....

I don't mean to jump the gun, but in a week or so, Portlanders will be able to buy containers of freshly simmered, locally made seitan at Food Fight!  It's called Cast Iron Seitan and the makers are Homeskillet LLC - who just happen to be Isa Chandra Moskowtiz and her awesome husband Justin, who's really doing all the work.  

I was happy to be given a sample and used half of it for yesterday's lunch.

Peanut Noodle Bowl

To keep things appropriately charming and tasty, I decided to grill the seitan over peanut noodles ala Vegan with a Vengeance for yesterdays's pleasantly made-at-home lunch on a leave-early-from-work snow day (and then it stopped snowing, holla).  

Naturally I changed the recipe a bit - I grilled the seitan and red bell pepper instead of sauteeing, omitted the onions, added raw julienned carrot with the cucumber and as for the sauce, I used locally made Thai and True yellow curry paste and a squeeze of fresh lime in place of dried coriander (ew).

I have never gotten my seitan as perfectly textured via simmering, and this stuff is darn wholesome and convenient, and made with something resembling love.

Huxley's a fan.

Maeve from Strawberryrock stopped by and had herself a bowl and a couple cookies.  I rarely cook meals for others these days so there was a little bit of casual excitement.

Mocha Mamas.  

Another test recipe for Terry and Isa's Upcoming Vegan Cookie Book.  

Quick trip to Seattle Foodz.

Please be prepared to wash your face upon viewing this post, it's a greasy one.  I have my new apricot facial scrub ready.

I gloriously admit that when I go to Seattle, I have Chinese food on my brain.  Portland has Vegetarian House and Bay Leaf, but neither fulfill my basic greasy Chinese take out habit that developed growing up on Long Island and going to college in Boston. In fact, going to P.F. Chang's while out of town on business usually hits that more!  Shhh.

Portland has an immense amount of Thai restaurants (Veganshizzle and I share the same favorite - Pad Thai Kitchen), yes, but they don't meet my liking for great chow mein or crispy gluten - that's what Seattle is for.  I've had the most reliably hit-the-spot meals at Bamboo Garden, but the fondest in my memory was a single meal at Teapot Vegetarian House over two years ago.  Last week, with dear visiting friend at my side, it was time to return.  

The meal then was actually a mixture of East Asian cuisines, as was my most recent one.

From Teapot Vegetarian House:

Veggie Dumplings - the first and best part of the meal.  Granted, we were super hungry and chomping down after a couple martinis and a long day...

Singapore Noodles with tofu - not the type of dish I typically order, but I was feeling adventurous.  It was tasty and curry noodle-icious, but the tofu was plain and simply cubed.

My friend ordered the Broccoli with Seitan - Classic Chinese style saucy broccoli and gluten (though not crispy, woe is us).  Saucy!

And I've heard so much about the cheezecake at Teapot and was bummed when they were out on my first visit.  This time around, they were out of the recommended chocolate cheezecake, but we grabbed a slice of mango to go.  I had a bite and found myself digging the texture but overall, it was beany and the sauce did nothing for me.  I never returned to it.

Mango Cheezecake

From Thai 65:

When we first arrived in Seattle, my friend I randomly hit up Thai 65 for quick downtown lunch before taking the historical Underground Tour.  We took a chance and the staff guaranteed that if I requested my food vegan, without fish sauce and oyster sauce, I wouldn't have a problem.

I ordered a noodle dish with tofu and vegetables - sadly forgetting which one - but it had a sweet brown soy sauce mentioned... slim on the tofu, but appetizing with noodles and fu.  No taste of fishy anything, thank goodness.

Noodles

And just when you thought this post couldn't contain anymore East Asian delectability - my visiting friend and I dined at the aforementioned Bay Leaf before she left town, back in Portland. We had the Mushroom Crisps and Sizzling Tofu.  

Sizzling Tofu

I missed cooking, but ate well.  Too well!

I cooked!

Holy shit! It's been a while, but over the past few weeks, I've managed a few meals at home - or at least throwing things together to dish out at work for lunch. And hit up the farmer's markets, of course.

Grilled BBQ tempeh, steamed kale, grilled zucchini and short grain brown rice.


I made this for a 4th of July vegan potluck: Gluten free Pesto & Roasted Garlic Mac & Cheeze with Green Beans. It was based on the Lower Fat New Farm recipe and I used rice noodles.


Berry Picking! Some friends I went berry picking a couple weeks ago on Sauvie Island, don't mind my crazy messy kitchen table! We picked strawberries, raspberries and blueberries (early). Berry picking is so therapeutic and I look forward to it every summer. Gets me through the warm madness!



Lunch at work: Leftover Rice & Beans from the Whole Bowl, Baked Tofu Bacon and steamed kale


More lunch at work: Some sort of noochy chickpea mix, lettuce, sugar snap peas and the last of the baked tofu bacon.


Someone is going to recognize this plate! I made dinner at Webly's house last week while I was dogsitting. Roasted potatoes, baked Italian pesto tofu and broccoli and corn with nutritional yeast and garlic. One of the best meals I've had lately (credit the lack of cooking).



Quick dinner from Papa G's - Mac & Cheeze with peas and a salad with ranch dressing.
The whole living-right-by-a-vegan-deli thing is sweet.



Recent farmer's market haul - zucchini, broccoli, garlic scapes (also known as tops and other names), apricots, baby new potatoes and corn.



A couple weeks ago I met Hannah from Bittersweet Blog and My Sweet Vegan. She was in town for a book signing (and treat sampling) at Herbivore and to record this segment of Whoopie Pie making on Everyday Dish. We also had the chance to chat at a mini PPK meet up at Townsend Tea's for bubble tea and knitting talk (of which I'm a total newbie). I tried one of her whoopie pies and oh, my.

Whoopie pies and mini muffins

Long week?

First off, let me remind anyone in or around the Portland area that VegFest is this weekend, actually starting tonight. I'll be volunteering tommorow morning myself, and then staying to check out demos, talks and booths - featuting Julie Hasson, Bryanna Clark Grogan, Herbivore, Field Roast, Amy's Kitchen, Food Fight! and TONS more. Here's a coupon, as well:


And, as usual, here are some recent meals from my kitchen:

Veganomican test kitchen Whole wheat fettucine with eggplant, breadcrumbs and a fresh tomato sauce. Topped with tofu basil ricotta.

Spicy peanut soba noodles with sauteed tofu, carrots, caulifower and bok choy.

Pizza night! Roasted garlic marinara, tofu basil ricotta, roasted asparagus, black olives, chopped mushroom, tomato and pineapple. My boyfriend was on a liquid diet for the day and then saw this...

Cookies for a ppk cookie swap! Veganomican chewy chocolate chocolate hazelnut chip and my peanut butter biscotti.

Silly blogger disabling my comments....